The Price One Must Pay
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: Frontier-verse. They find that everything comes at a price. With interest attached.
1. Takuya

Author's Notes

Six parts. Each for one of the legendary warriors, following the order their spirit selves were introduced in the anime. Which means it's Kouji next.

Wow, this is my 100th fic. Of course, more than a quarter of them are still in progress. I'm working on that; this had been planned for quite a while.

Enjoy, and tell me what you think.

* * *

><p><span>The Price One Must Pay<span>

Frontier-verse. They find that everything comes at a price. With interest attached.

Genre/s: Angst/Friendship

Rating: T

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><p><span>Part 1 of 6: Takuya<span>

He used to talk. A lot. Before the digital world, it seemed as though his mouth was moving before his brain could quite catch up. It got him into a lot of trouble too, namely badmouthing bullies that hated anything that meant they weren't getting what they wanted with minimal fuss (it would eventually lead to an all out brawl that got him more detentions and suspensions in his elementary school years than he cared to count) and talking back to teachers (the other main contributor to his detention record). He wasn't much more reserved at home, which generally resulted in him and Shinya fighting, him stalking off to cool down, then his mother sending his little brother after him an hour later.

Then the Digital World itself. Between shouting out attacks with a passion, pep talks, arguing with Kouji (though that thankfully stopped towards the middle of their journey), zealously bantering with evil maniacal digimon and learning his own lessons, enough words were said to flood the oceans, literally. With the power of the legendary spirits of flame behind his back, and most importantly, in his heart, there was nothing stopping the fervour backing the words of strength and justice. There was nothing stopping that power being shouted out at its full potential in his hands. Him, just a human, with the power of a digimon.

Coming back from the Digital World, there wasn't really all that much left to say than a few long awaited apologies. Obviously, without the death threat looming, things were quieter, falling back into its normal routine with a more mature and guarded boy. Their moment of glory was over; they were not warriors here. They were simply humans.

But they still carried the memories and lessons. They had grown. They were stronger.

But that came at a price.

He only realised a year or two later, when he met up with an old friend he had lost contact with. The change had been gradual, hence why no-one else had picked up the descending silence. A lot of thoughts were going unsaid, bubbling up to rise before vanishing. Something was holding them back. He thought it was just acquired wisdom. He hadn't even realised.

It just took one offhand comment to make him realise what he was slowly loosing.

'You don't talk much nowadays, do you?'

He became more conscious of that from that moment. Important things still came out though, so he simply assumed it was a change. But he found it suddenly quite difficult to speak his mind, as though something was physically clutching the words he aimed to will out of his mouth and tossing them back down his throat. Sentences were getting shorter, he quit the debating team, and he found even phone calls were dwindling rapidly. Emails too; putting the words on paper were about as hard as getting them out his throat. It was as if thought was losing its ability to become expressed in any sort of language.

That brought on other sorts of changes. His voice had been many things, but above all it had been a weapon. The extrovert was turning inwards. The snow was falling over the fire, smouldering it.

His parents worried. They took him to a psychiatrist about three years after the events of the Digital World. She thought his mind was withdrawing from some sort of trauma. After all, there was nothing physically wrong.

His parents asked. He just shook his head in reply.

He met another old acquaintance soon after. A teacher that had taught his troublesome past self in second grade, now returning to his junior high school life. By then, the teenager had changed so much that the teacher hadn't even recognised him until the name was read off the register. When it was, he pondered the briefest moments, before simply assuming it was someone else with the same name, and passing on. Appearances may have been somewhat similar, but the auras each projected were alike in only the barest ways.

It continued going downhill. One day eventually, he opened his mouth to greet his mother…and nothing came out. It hit him then, how far apart this moment was from his epiphany in the Digital World.

For playing with a power beyond his sustenance in this world, he was paying with one of the things that most defined him.

The chatty, boisterous Takuya was gone. This one just stared at his mother a moment, then turned around and went quietly back upstairs.


	2. Kouji

Author's Notes

Ok, here's the next part. Kouji's price. And I thought this particular one was rather predictable. Come on, what's the first thing that comes with light? What happens when there's no light, what's the first thing you can't do?

You probably would have noticed this fic is a little overly pessimistic. That's sort of the point though. Hit the top, then the only place to go from there is down.

Enjoy, and tell me what you think.

* * *

><p><span>The Price One Must Pay<span>

Frontier-verse. They find that everything comes at a price. With interest attached.

Genre/s: Angst/Friendship

Rating: T

* * *

><p><span>Part 2 of 6: Kouji<span>

He had, since a very early age, taken an interest in those sorts of things that required a quick eye. He excelled in kendo, taekwondo and other forms of martial arts because his blue orbs managed to snatch little details and utilise them before his opponent really knew what was going on. Weaknesses were relatively easy to spot, and it didn't take him long to pick up new moves when watching someone else.

He was more of a visual learner as far as school went. Sure he paid attention in class and took notes where necessary, but he learnt better with pictures and maps and demonstrations than words. Words seemed empty, hollow. A picture always said far more.

If someone else looked into his eyes, they wouldn't see much. Because he walled them off from the world. But he saw far more, little things that didn't always register, things he didn't always consider. He saw things, and for a time, he ignored them. Depending, sometimes he acted on what he saw, but despite his hunter-like sight, he tended to be quite blind in understanding.

In the digital world, things changed. The walls, the blindfold if you will, crumbled with the sheer power placed in his hands, in his sight. He saw more than he ever had, understood more. He _was_ light. Like that shone, light that illuminated, light that _saw_. He found the truth. He found power. He found a love he had never fully accepted.

Coming back to the real world, he was a new person, for a bit. He had friends, a family that was whole and happy again, no longer the boy who blocked out what he saw and stayed dark and angry inside. Essentially, he could see the world with new eyes, understand more, appreciate more…

It took him a long while to realise he was seeing less and less every day.

It began with missing or misreading simple things. Like skimming through a physics test when pressed for time and mistakenly not seeing the superscript. Like not noticing the slight weakness and prolonging a spar because of it.

It seemed rather insignificant for a time; except the self defence. He had picked up rather fast reflexes in the digital world after all, but he could feel those slowing because he couldn't catch things as fast as he once used to. It reminded him of the Phantomon; while he tried his brother's way of handling them, he realised he was simply too reliant on his sight.

What he hadn't realised at that point, was it was failing him.

In another year, it got bad enough so that he needed glasses to see the board in school. An annoyance, but he assumed he had inherited it from his father.

Problem was, he was long-sighted. It didn't add up.

But there were many kids his age that wore glasses. It was no abnormality.

What was odd was that the optometrist had found no physical defect upon a more thorough examination when the glasses failed to last five months. She was baffled, but there was nothing to be done except to prescribe a stronger pair.

He pulled out of his self-defence classes; there was more pain than gain in them now. And having left for good, he realised he had somehow lost a part of himself. Fighting, as much as he sometimes loathed it, was his life.

His eyesight simply got worse over time. Colours and shapes blurred. Eventually, all he could see was a hand in front of his face…and then, not even that.

Light still shone. Darkness glared. But that was all. And he realised how dependent humans like himself were on sight. How much depended on what they saw and understood from that.

There wasn't all that much to do after that. He still played, the guitar he had received from a distant relative, his stepmother's piano…he still went to school and studied, but his dream in the physical industry was lost. He searched, but without sight, he had no way of knowing where he was going, and what lay ahead. He still heard. He still felt. But he realised then he had never put much stock on those senses. And it was costing him now.

At one point in his life, he had seen the world. Now, he saw nothing.

It didn't occur to him until too late that he was essentially giving up. Wandering endlessly, with no goal.

'Aren't you going to do something?'

_I am doing something_. But ultimately, where was it leading? Nowhere he could tell.

If someone else looked into those eyes, they would see no light in them. Not even that reflecting off the world.


	3. Tomoki

Author's Notes

Explanation for this one at the end.

Enjoy.

* * *

><p><span>The Price One Must Pay<span>

Frontier-verse. They find that everything comes at a price. With interest attached.

Genre/s: Angst/Friendship

Rating: T

* * *

><p><span>Part 3 of 6: Tomoki<span>

He had always been rather sensitive. He cried easily; he'd admit it. He also scared easily. Hence why he was such a good target for bullies at the time. He was too soft. Like melting snow. It made him weak to face the world, or so others told him, whether for good or ill.

He had trouble finding a medium in the world; the snow was simply too slippery to be able to solidly hold somewhere. Some were rather mean to him, others rather kind when he had not asked for it (although Yutaka for one disagreed with that sentiment). Before the digital world, he was a little kid, getting picked on and being too scared to fight back on one end of the string, and being essentially spoilt on the other.

When he came to the Digital World, things began to change. He met people who did neither, but rather treated him like they would any other person slightly younger. Sure, they made some allowances for him, being younger then them…well, except Kouji and to an extent Junpei at the earlier stages of their journey. During the course of that journey, beginning when he found he simply couldn't run away any longer in fear and first attained the human spirit of ice, he began to grow stronger, tougher, harder. He stood up to a boy he regarded as his brother when the beast spirit raged out of control to stop him from hurting himself and other people. He stood by his morals and helped his enemies even after they double-crossed him twice over. He understood finally the lesson his brother had been trying to teach, and was strong enough to face his own shortcoming and transcend them, fighting against the fiery treachery that sought to destroy both him and his relationships with his brother. He was strong enough to stand up to his bullies, then turn around and save them when they froze in terror, showing a bravery that had not expected nor to their knowledge possessed themselves. Sensitive still to things, but strong now to face, use, and transcend them.

That remained when he came back from the Digital World. No longer a bully magnet. "Protector of the small" some of the younger kids dubbed him at some stage. For the first time in the human world he was standing tall on his own two feet.

That was all fine and dandy, but there were other levels of sensitivity as well. His skin was also soft, physically. His gums bled when he brushed them too hard. His stomach turned queasy when the ride was too rough.

At first, he was thrilled to find his carsickness vanishing over the course of a few short months. Even happier was he when the toothpaste no longer burnt his teeth…until one day he accidently brushed too hard and noted blood he had failed to feel.

He got into less scuffles, or any sort of thing that caused him to get hurt, so it took him a long time to notice it wasn't stinging as much as it used to. Paper cuts went completely unnoticed, and it was only until the blood mixing with foam and water was washed down the sink that he first realised something might be wrong.

He assumed then that his skin had simply adapted a little better. After all, he didn't know anyone else who was quite so sensitive.

Until the knife slipped from his hands when he had been cutting onions in preparation for dinner and left a blooming cut on the face of his hand, deep enough to require a temporary tourniquet to halt the bleeding. And then stitches at the clinic.

What bothered him the most was that he hadn't felt a thing. He wouldn't have even noticed if the blood hadn't doused the onions red.

He remembered then, all the little bruises and cuts that came from playing soccer, from everyday things, that he never remembered from where they had come, nor realised their existence till he coincidently examined himself or saw himself in the mirror…or someone pointed that out to him.

He took more note after that, almost obsessively checking himself over during the course of the day. Not that it made a difference; cuts, bruises and scrapes wormed their way onto his body during the normal mode of events, but they went unfelt. Almost as if his body had forgotten pain.

It affected his personality too, though he had only noticed when someone else commented on it. His parents, he realised, let him get away with anything, wanting him to grow into his own man. His brother was the antithesis, wanting to make sure the man was one who could stand by himself in a good position in the world. So of course he noted. But he wasn't quite sure for the longest time how to respond. Because being hard and cold was generally a good defence mechanism, but it denied the inner softness that everyone, some more than others, possessed.

There was a funeral soon after. A good friend of his fathers. He was crying. So was his wife. Yutaka looked solemn in his black suit. Tomoki simply looked blank, when there was a time he would have, at the least, looked sympathetic.

That was what worried him. His kid brother had changed almost beyond recognition. The things that made him _him_ had warped into something and someone else.

So he stopped him one day. Asked him. Confronted him.

He knew he was gripping too hard; perhaps it was some sort of an innate fear. But his brother hadn't even felt the hold, walking out of it as if the grip had been a jelly-like lax. He had called him; the other had heard. But it was almost as if the question, or rather, the ideals it questioned, were foreign to him. He looked at him a moment, before continuing upstairs. It bothered him; he could tell. But the snow had hardened beyond solidity. It was almost as if he _could_ no longer feel.

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><p><span>Post Author's Notes<span>

Ice is one of the elements of Mercury, which is the smallest planet in the solar system and represents some of the more subtle aspects of ice and water in the Sailor Moon series. It is also related to the story Mercury's Net from Roman mythology, where he tried to catch Venus and Mars in the act of making love, jealous because Venus was _his_ wife. Later, he steals the net and uses it to catch Cloris by the wingtip, who was tasked with flying after the sun while it rose and scattering lilies, roses and violets behind it. He later returns the net to guard a sacred spot. So that's where the idea came from.


	4. Izumi

Author's Notes

Congrats to Asarikou-chan for guessing Izumi's price correctly. Hopefully, it was still entertaining.

Next up is Junpei, then lucky last is Kouichi. Okay…not so lucky to be honest. No-one's getting away from me. *Insert evil laugh*

Any takers for the last two? Kouichi's may be a little obscure for some. I've just got an obsession with darkness (if you couldn't tell from my fics), so it made perfect sense to me.

Enjoy.

* * *

><p><span>The Price One Must Pay<span>

Frontier-verse. They find that everything comes at a price. With interest attached.

Genre/s: Angst/Friendship

Rating: T

* * *

><p><span>Part 4 of 6: Izumi<span>

She had always been a rather free-spirited girl. Even at a young age, she would be running everywhere and climbing all sorts of furniture…under her parents' supervision of course, they didn't want her climbing off the balcony and crashing to the ground like she almost had at age two. Luckily, her father had been fixing the stairs under the said balcony, and after hearing the shriek, hurriedly caught the tumbling, exhilarated toddler.

When she grew older, she still ran around…when she could get away with it. She had a sharp mouth too, and quite the imagination, probably why she threw herself into every opportunity for drama that she could. She grew quite independent growing up, despite being an only child, contraire to the general consensus that kids like her become too dependent because they are spoilt parents who do not have to split their attention. They tried to restrict her, having to draw the line as parents _somewhere_; she was a young girl in modern society after all, but for the most part, they let her grow into her own woman. She did so too, blossoming in Italy, but when they moved to Japan, the loose, spirited girl had no place in the traditional Japanese society.

Within a few months, she was called to the digital world. Her free spirit found Fairymon and Shutumon, the warriors of wind, and the identity that had given her grief these past times and blurred in the process became stronger, fiercer and more solid than ever. She learnt a sort of mollification of sorts, but more importantly, she had the power to move freely on land and air (and sea, if the battles with Ranamon and Calmaramon were any indication), and to use that power to attain victory in whatever fight the Digital World threw her way. Even when she lost her spirits, her legs and invisible wings threw her into the fray, catching the egg that was the last salvation of the digital world before anyone else even thought to move.

That experience taught her more about herself. She realised that the free movement that allowed her to flitter through situations, biting, lashing and snapping at times, was as much a defence mechanism as a gift. It came then to knowing what to do in what situation, honing and trusting one's instincts and understanding oneself and the relationship with other people (being different to the people she had been used to), and still maintaining that integrity and strength and spirit that made her who she was.

After a few years since their return, she realised her life was slowing down. She loved new things; ideas, challenges. She loved travelling, even if it was by herself with a local ticket, wondering through streets and parks and shopping complexes, and the occasional else. But she found herself staying home more and more, occupying herself with less experimental and more mundane things. She in fact didn't notice at all, until her mother, the work outdoors type herself, noted the pleasant change of the boring household chores being done by the time she got home.

It wasn't a reason for concern till awhile later, when her school had another camp, which she refused to go. She waved off the concerns though, simply saying she didn't feel like it.

She quit the drama club a few weeks later, then dropped debating after finding her arguments weren't coming out with the same passions. Writing, she still done on occasion, but the stories, while words flowed true as they always did, seemed to lack that inner passion and free spirit that others had attributed as her trademark.

Her teachers were concerned of course; well, most of them were. Science and math for one, or two to be technically accurate, were thrilled she was finally sticking to the prescribed methods and in the case of the former, not blowing things up in the labs, but her language teachers, for Japanese and English that is, found the quality of her work was lacking. Humanities was falling too, but mostly because she was going for less and less of the many excursions and sometimes multiple day long trips that were arranged.

She eventually started cancelling appointments with friends as well, simply going where it was absolutely necessary. Her face would sometimes go white with the strain, as if she was forcing herself to keep walking forward. But the long summer holidays that year simply couldn't come fast enough. Never before had she felt so spent, so…paralysed. Never before had her soul ever resisted to carrying her on the winds of life.

She panicked. Quite suddenly. Her parents panicked too, but she only knew about that when she woke up hours later in the hospital. The doctors had no explanation; there was nothing wrong, medically speaking, save the run of the mill panic attack. They couldn't explain what caused, and as she refused to say, there was nothing else to be done.

Her legs shook badly as she walked from the hospital with her parents. They attributed it to the shock. She didn't. She couldn't tell whether it was her body or mind doing the deteriorating, but she realised at that point that she had hit the peak and tumbled down. Once the queen of the air, now she could barely walk on land. There was no-where she wanted to go, not even home sweet home, enough for her feet to carry her with no resistance. There was no free spirit; the Digital World had brought its full glory as well as its death.

One day, she stood up off her bed, staring at the door only a few paces away. Her legs attempted, reluctantly, forcefully, to take one shaky step forward, and wobbled dangerously. Her brain froze. _Only a few steps_, she tried to tell her mind, but unexplainably, the words would not form. Her balanced tottered dangerously. She sat heavily on her bed again to stop herself from falling. Her body locked. She stayed, frozen in place, like a statuette.


	5. Junpei

Author's Notes

And Kaito Lune nailed it this time. Congrats. So now there's only Kouichi left, and not that many options to chose from if anyone can pick up the pattern. Last call anyone?

Wow, three updates in the same day. Well, the one for Sakura, Mono no Aware was written since last week, so I suppose it technically only two chapters. No, wait a sec, I wrote a different chapter today, so it's still three. Got a backlog just in case I get too busy later down the track, especially when exams loom nearer.

Wow, only one left after this. Figures Takuya's one is the one I had trouble with.

Ignoring that, enjoy, and tell me what you think.

* * *

><p><span>The Price One Must Pay<span>

Frontier-verse. They find that everything comes at a price. With interest attached.

Genre/s: Angst/Friendship

Rating: T

* * *

><p><span>Part 5 of 6: Junpei<span>

He always had good hearing. Too good, as loud noises such as the thunder hurt his ears. When he was younger, he would remember the sharp pain shooting through his skull; perhaps that was what triggered his fear of thunder.

It was ironic, that he was fated to be the warrior of thunder then. But perhaps not. Good hearing was better for things like listening, philosophising, theorising…and sometimes putting one's foot in one's mouth when facts took precedence over emotions. He was more of a listener than a feeler, so sue him.

He didn't have many friends. He'd see people, listen to them, copy them, and try to make friends. When that didn't work, he'd try someone else. Magic tricks, he found a liking too, listening to and watching the foreign Houdini, associating the little optical tricks with the explanations, and the narrations that followed by the commentators shedding some light on the so-called magic. In class, he'd listen closely; he knew that was his best bet for processing that information. Reading normally took ten times as long; they'd go straight through one eye and out the other the first eight times. The tenth of course was to make sure it _stayed_ in his brain.

The Digital World was a challenge he had initially felt he wasn't prepared for. Just as loud, unexpected noises hurt his ears and lead to an innate fear of them, unknown adventures did the same. Especially since he was powerless for a long time after the others.

It turned out he hadn't needed a spirit to fight his first fight. His power had come from words, someone's else's words of passion, encouragement, and most importantly, hope. From there, his power grew, and when he got his spirit, it exponentially enhanced.

It seemed fitting that his human spirit was a bug. A beetle to be exact. The insect kingdom in general had exceptional hearing. And he commanded the thunder that had hurt and spooked him as a kid at his fingertips.

For a moment, he couldn't help but question the irony. But the moment he let that power loose on the oppressive Snimon, he realised it was no longer the case. Standing up and fighting one thing had uplifted the next; the thunder was still loud, but no longer painful. Instead, it was the deafening holler of victory.

He continued to grow thereafter, as a human and as a digimon. He learnt what it truly meant to be a friend, and a brother. And when he came back to the real world, he put those lessons to use, surrounding himself with new friends in the right way, his own way.

Things got better after that; people talked, he listened, he threw in his input. He wasn't prone to babying people, but for the most part, his philosophy was still reasonable. Sometimes he still put his foot in his mouth, especially when it came to the quiet shy times where you could never tell what they were thinking; perhaps they needed a spark to wake them up, because they tended to turn red or awkward, and he'd know he's said something. Funnily enough, those situations tend to help.

The first he noticed that suddenly started changing was when he slept through a rather vicious thunderstorm, only to be greeted by a pair of sleeping parents wondering why he wasn't as bedraggled as them. They brushed it off as him being tired; anyone could sleep through anything when they were stressed and exhausted from cramming for high school entrance exams.

That was, until his teachers started complaining his marks were dropping. He didn't get it. He was focusing the same he always did; it was as if his hearing was dulling though, as of words were getting filtered out, and in the mundane lectures, lost with their meaning. His father scolded him; he shook his head helplessly. He didn't get it.

It went downhill after that. Soon, it wasn't just classes, but other conversations as well. He lost some of the friends he had made over the years because of it, 'ignoring' them without mean nor purpose. Words and sounds were melding into each other, barely being distinguishable. It was as if Japanese was becoming a foreign language, but then, it wasn't just Japanese, but other sounds as well. Simple things. The wind. People talking. The TV. The thunder.

He looked out his window. Lightning was flashing in the sky. He counted silently, knowing thunder would echo soon.

The echo came, and went, and the numbers continued. Monotonously, ritually, as though if he kept counting, he would hear it eventually. He never did though; he would never hear the sound of thunder again.

Fifteen years after first fearing it, it was gone. Along with the blessings it brought.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He didn't turn to look at them though, continuing to stare out the window. A beetle stood on the windowsill, watching the rain with him. Watching the lightning.

It jumped, a few seconds later, only to run into the window and fall.

That's where he was now too. Squashed like a bug after jumping into the prime.


	6. Kouichi

Author's Notes

And that's the end. *Sniffs* I rather enjoyed this fic, once I got it going.

So…what's left to say. A big thank you to everyone who stuck through this fic, and an extra one to those who threw out their ideas.

This in isn't quite as spot on with canon as the others, namely because Kouichi doesn't spend enough time in the spotlight and turns out to be a bit of an enigma. So this is just my interpretation. Or one of them to be honest.

Enjoy.

* * *

><p><span>The Price One Must Pay<span>

Frontier-verse. They find that everything comes at a price. With interest attached.

Genre/s: Angst/Friendship

Rating: T

* * *

><p><span>Part 6 of 6: Kouichi<span>

He was always rather perceptive, even as a child. He supposed it was because of the constant input of stimuli; his mother had, for as long as he could remember, been working hard and long, spending only a few hours in the afternoon at home with him once he started school before going off to a night shift. Till he was old enough to stay home alone, he would remain in the company of his grandparents who were most supportive of the single mother and her son but had problems of their own, and various work colleagues when their hours did not coincide with Tomoko's herself. Every person was different in their own right, but he found himself paying close attention to the subtle difficulties. Simple, sometimes almost mundane things, but things that tied people closer with their environment, took them further. Things that brought a smile to their lips, or tears to their eyes. Little subtleties, testing the waters with the barest toe before knowing where to proceed and where to tread around with caution.

Kids tended to develop a perceptual set based on the environment they spend the first few years of their life within. He wasn't quite sure what was the cementing factor; perhaps he had enough different comparisons at a young age to apply the child's resolution that smiles and laughs solve everything, and then focus on what triggered them. Whatever it was, it had always been natural for him to pick up the intricacies of a person's behaviour, prompting his mother to tease him sometimes about growing up to be a psychologist. Not that it was a bad profession per say. He had seriously considered it for a time.

That's essentially what brought him to the Digital World. The final piece of the puzzle being revealed to him, and disproportionating the image that had been built up.

When he first saw his father and brother, there was already an inner prejudice. Naturally, his mind was quick to seek out evidence; he didn't deny that there were times where he failed to be objective and reserve judgement. But he also noticed the cold aloofness of the boy almost antisense to himself, the inner shadow that lurked with the elder man as he attempted to instigate some discipline in a boy who was resolved to remain apart and alone, yet at the same time longing for comfort of companionship.

That was a boy who pushed himself away from friends and family. That was a boy afraid of losing more. But that was also a boy who had a life he took for granted.

It was a complicated situation, to be honest. Moving from the continuum, parts of him were scattered all over the place. He wondered whether it was worth trying to bring a family broken apart together, whether it would even accomplish anything; sure, it would bring a smile to his mother's face, but for how long? He didn't think they'd be forcefully separated; he could tell his father felt the same strength, simply not as prominent as he wasn't worked as hard and thus had a harder wall to hide behind. But who knew what sorts of barriers fate would toss.

And then there was the awkwardness of connecting two people who did not remember each other at all.

He wasn't a social person. He wasn't going to take some random stranger off the streets telling him he was his brother well at all. But then, how was he supposed to do it?

Another problem: not having the answers tended to eat away at him. It bothered him. It weighed on his mind more than it should have. But he kept it all inside, not wanting others to suffer his own plague. Perhaps it was selfless, perhaps selfish. But it was a mass of mixed up thoughts, emotions and perceptions taking root within himself.

The darkness segregated them. In the darkness, where there was no light, no smiles, no laughter, no happiness, it was easy for the negativity to come out. It was easy for Cherubimon to sense it, warp it, use it. It was easy to create Duskmon, and numb that pain that came with an overload which one knew not what to do with.

The slightest prick of his subconsciousness, or perhaps it was his heart, brought him pain. In the end, it broke him down. It defeated Velgemon, the monstrous vulture who ceased to perceive anything save its insatiable hunger for death. It defeated Duskmon, the empty void who still felt the echoes of a human heart. It defeated _him_, someone who had torn himself across selflessness and selfishness. Someone who saw too much, felt too much, read too much, but said and did too little.

There wasn't a need to keep quiet eventually. There wasn't a way. In a world where every battle was a part of war, everything came out. Barriers fell. Hurdles were cleared. Awkwardness eradicated. Things flew by so fast, they almost seemed like a blue. But there were lessons, memories, feelings in them all. Little things sometimes, sometimes they took time to see and understand, as heart and head battled each other. Sometimes, they took the help of somebody else. But everything fell together. Why this all had happened. Why it had to happen. And what would need to happen next, if everything was to succeed. And therein was his power. His strength. Not fighting with arms or body or weapons, but seeing where one's weaknesses lay, where one's advantages were.

In that split second, when the two orbs were about to collide into one, the entire story, the entire puzzle, was mapped before him in astounding clarity. And that was what it had taken.

Afterwards, things didn't really change for a time, although they weren't fighting for their lives and the lives of others. That experience had brought them closer than ever, but time was infallible, and so were other things. People changed. Circumstances changed. Nothing ever stayed the same.

As he was, he always payed attention to the smaller details. It was innate. It was just who he was to pick up the little hints.

So when one of his mother's friends startled him with a surprise party, despite the almost secretive air he had somehow failed to realise, despite being startled, he was worried as well.

Others would think he was being silly, but there was always that little fear of Velgemon buried. Sometimes sensing little things that were insignificant to others, like the little greyness in the clouds to tell him it was going to rain soon, or the little chirps that said there were many little friends jumping about the grass, or that this mention of purple linked back to patriarchal origins…so when he read the poem in his hand over and over and failed to understand his meaning, he found himself more afraid than he had ever been in his life. Even more so than when he had stared death in the face. Even more so than when his world had shattered around him.

His dreams turned to a heavy fog of black that gave nothing but rest, if even that. Many were actually pleased with the change, those who did not know him. He was more 'normal' in their view; the keenness, quietness, and outward mystery and almost mystic air associated had been a little unnerving to them.

Those closer however were concerned about the change.

The teacher eventually had to take the unmarked paper away from him and note the top. He was startled; that was obvious. But when he called him to his office to explain, he really couldn't say.

Obviously, his Sensei couldn't let it go. And it hadn't been the first time either. Nor was it the last, or the only thing. Method was fine, it was the deeper level of understanding that was suffering. 'Perhaps he has just burnt himself out,' the school counsellor offered. 'Reached the limit of his understanding.'

Perhaps, after reaching the peak in the darkness.

In the end, he withdrew almost completely. He adjusted his classes, dropping literature completely which no longer held pleasure after the fun of digging deep and interpreting was lost with that inability, picking up classes instead that didn't require those nuances of understanding but rather mundane repetition. It would be okay for a little while, but what would happen with the higher levels of understanding? And it wasn't just that. He communicated less, contributed less, almost as if he was pulling away. Initially, they wondered if it was because he was afraid of hurting them. Perhaps it was that, for a time. But that was a surface beneath which they would eventually have to look.

He had always been quiet, introverted. But at least he had been _there_.

* * *

><p><span>Post Author's Notes<span>

Here's the explanation for Kouichi, seeing as it's a little obscure.

Darkness represents yin, and yang and yin are used in the I Ching, where solid lines represent yang and broken lines represent yin. The I Ching (Book of Change) is a mode of divination, which is supposed to give awareness of the future. Darkness also highlights light (can't see light if no darkness) and in addition goes further, so while light represents knowledge, darkness represents wisdom, a deeper sense of perception, etc. Sleeping is a representation of darkness, and dreams are enlightening, linking together the bits of the puzzle to give a full picture. See where I went with this? I could go on, but I think I'll bore you all.

There is a reason I put this one at the end. Note that perception actually entails the other five, just like darkness entails the other elements. You know, the whole from darkness came everything thing. And darkness as much as perception and to an extent Kouichi himself are enigmas, they are also a little paradoxical. It was so hard to squeeze it into the allocated space; it went a third over.

Here's a quick summary, to anyone who got lost.

Takuya – loss of speech.

Kouji – loss of sight.

Tomoki – loss of feeling.

Izumi – loss movement.

Junpei – loss of hearing.

Kouichi – loss of perceptiveness.

They actually came from the basic senses, though they've been warped a bit. 1, 2, and 5 are obvious. 6 is actually a 'social' sense, as opposed as a physical, ie. how a person fits into their social world, but it's actually a little more involved in that. Basically seeing things past face value. 4 is the sense of balance/equilibrium, and 3 is the somatosensory, the sense of touch, temperature and pain, ie. all feeling. I left out taste. Didn't really fit with the idea.


End file.
